Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Genre: Horror/Comedy

Time: 1hour 32mins

Director: Scott Glosserman

Quick Summary: The next great psycho horror slasher has given a documentary crew exclusive access to his life as he plans his reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen Echo.

You know what I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did.

This is a pretty unique take on a horror film that I don't think I have actually seen, creating a mockumentary about a serial killer planning his first killing spree. The serial killer is the one doing the talking and explaining, telling us how and what he's going to do, why and explaining the backstory. It's like someone created a self-insert fandom character and literally brought them to life. 

I wasn't overly keen on the documentary footage being someone who doesn't like them anyway, but it wasn't too bad. I really enjoyed the interview moments as a lot of them went really meta explaining horror movie tropes and jokes. Honestly, it reminds me a lot of the Scream films which isn't a bad thing as this paid homage to a lot of the classic horror films, and being a massive fan of horror films it was so fun to spot all the references. The humour in this is pretty satirical which I always enjoy and it worked really well within this.

At first, I took Leslie, the serial killer, as a joke. I really didn't believe he was actually going to do anything and the whole thing was some sort of school project. Though he does have some sort of strange charm to him, I was getting invested in his plan and I found myself actually wanting him to do it. 

Taylor the main woman and filmmaker I also really enjoyed, it was so interesting to watch her go from excited about a fun project to actually freaking out because things are actually happening and now she is stuck following this nutcase around. I wouldn't want to be in her shoes, to be honest. Though thinking about it, what did she expect glamourizing and going along with the plans of someone so delusional? His outfit I was very unsure of his outfit as well, the mask looked okay, but it wasn't that scary. It was like someone had made a really bad face morphing filter into a mask.

It did take me a hot minute to actually work out this was supposed to be a joke and not serious, which I think is due to the massive pacing issue. The setup is so slow, and it takes forever for something to actually happen. Like sure man, we know you're clearly nuts, but can you show us. However, my biggest gripe with this is there was like no gore or proper shots of the killings. Like you give us a horror film where we don't see anything really. That's an instant disappointment to me. 

Those aside, this was still fun and worth watching for those who love horror films. I know I love things that poke fun at horror tropes because they are stupid and overdone, that's why we love them.

7/10